Organizations conduct penetration testing to locate network vulnerabilities and to prevent attacks that can cause system downtime, data loss, and damaged reputations. While other measures exist, conducting penetration testing is a vital part of any effective, holistic security strategy. It’s the best way to determine system vulnerabilities that can then be remediated to prevent hackers from accessing mission-critical systems.
Apart from preventing an eventual security breach, organizations conduct penetration testing for the following reasons:
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To determine the weaknesses in hardware infrastructures, software applications, and human errors so as to create adequate controls.
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To expose security bugs in the existing software. While you can eliminate bugs by installing patches and regular updates, patches and updates can also bring along new vulnerabilities.
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To ensure that controls have been implemented and are indeed effective.
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To identify gaps in security controls.
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To discover “backdoors” and misconfigurations.
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To test an organization’s ability to respond to an actual breach quickly and effectively.
How often a company should engage in pen testing depends on several factors, including:
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Company size. It’s no secret that bigger companies with a greater online presence might also have more urgency to test their systems, since they would have more attack vectors and might be juicier targets for threat actors.
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Budget. Pen tests can be expensive, so an organization with a smaller budget might be less able to conduct them. A lack of funds might restrict pen testing to once every two years, for example, while a bigger budget might allow for more frequent and thorough testing.
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Regulations, laws and compliance. Depending on the industry, various laws and regulations might require organizations to perform certain security tasks, including pen testing.
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Infrastructure: Certain companies might have a 100 percent cloud environment and might not be allowed to test the cloud provider’s infrastructure. The provider may already conduct pen tests internally.
Pen testing should not be taken lightly; it has the potential to provide a critical security service to all companies.
This Article Was Written & published by Meena R, Senior Manager - IT, at Luminis Consulting Services Pvt. Ltd, India.
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